Monica Lewinsky's TED Talk: "Public Humiliation as a Blood Sport Has to Stop"

On Thursday, Monica Lewinsky took the stage at TED2015 to talk about the consequences of online bullying, calling herself "Patient Zero of losing personal reputation on a global scale." Watch a short clip of her talk here:

Lewinksy, now in her 40s, was forced into the public spotlight at age 24, two years after beginning an affair with President Clinton while she was a White House intern. "Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of my mistake, and I regret that mistake deeply," she said to the TED crowd. "In 1998, after having been swept up in an improbable romance, I was then swept up into the eye of a political, legal, and media maelstrom like we had never seen before."

Other memorable moments of her speech:

"I was branded as a tramp, tart, slut, whore, bimbo, and, of course, 'that woman.' I was known by many, but actually known by few. I get it. It was easy to forget 'that woman' was dimensional and had a soul."

"For nearly two decades now, we have slowly been sowing the seeds of shame and public humiliation in our cultural soil."

"Public humiliation as a blood sport has to stop. We need to return to a long-held value of compassion and empathy."

"The Internet is the superhighway for the id," she says, "but online showing empathy to others benefits us all.... Just imagine walking a mile in someone else's headline."

"Anyone who is suffering from shame and public humiliation needs to know one thing: You can survive it. I know it's hard. It may not be painless, quick, or easy, but you can insist on a different ending to your story."

Last spring, Lewinsky penned an essay for Vanity Fair about the affair with President Clinton and the aftermath—specifically vicious online attacks. The piece opened with, "How does it feel to be America's premier blow-job queen?" and progressed into a heartbreaking account of Lewinksy watching her friends move on to marriage and kids while she remained stuck in the role of "that woman." "It may surprise you to learn that I'm actually a person," she wrote.

It has taken women much too long to support Lewinsky, who as a very young woman found herself falling for a man in an extraordinarily higher position of power. As Jessica Bennett of the The New York Times noted:

*Ms. Lewinsky was quickly cast by the media as a "little tart," as > The Wall Street Journal put it. The > *New York Post *nicknamed her the "Portly Pepperpot." She was described by Maureen Dowd in > *The New York Times as "ditsy" and "predatory." And other women—self-proclaimed feminists—piled on. "My dental hygienist pointed out she had third-stage gum disease," said Erica Jong. Betty Friedan dismissed her as "some little twerp."

Gloria Steinem told Bennett, "It's a sexual shaming that is far more directed at women than at men….I'm grateful to [Lewinksy] for having the courage to return to the public eye."

What do you think of Lewinksy speaking out about what happened to her and online bullying as a whole? Share in the comments.